Getting It Done: Learning the Hard Way

Mario is an experienced PMO manager with more than 15 years managing portfolios, programs and projects in Telecom, IT, Infrastructure, Defense, Space and Aeronautics. He also teaches project management, strategy and business administration at colleges and business schools/MBA courses.

  Leadership   New Practitioners  

Previously published in PM Network and Getting It Done: Project Management in Action.

Project success generally depends on whether stakeholders are happy with a project’s results. On each project, we do our best to get stakeholders involved, collect the right requirements, and manage expectations for stakeholders, sponsors and clients.

So why do our projects get in trouble during execution? I believe it’s because we focus on trying to please clients and sponsors, and keeping the project on track—and we forget to take care of the team.

We can’t manage people in the same way we manage cash, schedule and resources. We have to lead them. Happy team members work better and faster. If you spend time building your team, you’ll get better performance. Here’s how:

• Keep team members informed. The project team should know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. But above all, they have to know why they are doing it. When a project manager can show each team member how his or her work supports the project objectives, there is a sense of responsibility, accountability and ownership for the team member. When the team is aware of consequences and trade-o­ffs, it will be more proactive.
• Get to know team members. As project managers, we have to guide our teams…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.